Jan 11, 2011

Good news!

There's so much terrible news out there, especially with this weekend's assassination attempt, that I've been hungry for some good, happy stuff - and now I found some. After a New Year’s Eve attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt killed 21 people, thousands of Egyptian Muslims came to Coptic Christian churches during their Christmas celebrations last week to provide a "human shield" against more violence. From an article in AhramOnline.com, an Egyptian English-language news site:

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.

Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular Muslim televangelist and preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.

“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly Street. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”

Sounds like Americans could learn a little something about solidarity, and support for minorities, from this story.

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I still get a hard copy of the newspaper delivered to my front door every day and am hoping that the New York Times won't ever stop printing on paper. I love politics and I love history, and I think our political discourse suffers because we don't think enough about the historical contexts of our current debates. I'm working on a PhD in U.S. History while trying to figure out a way to make change in the real world. This blog is part of that effort. Email me at blog at pastforwardpolitics dot com.